The plaintiffs, twelve graduates of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, sued their alma mater in district court, alleging that the school disseminated false employment statistics which misled them into deciding to attend Cooley. The graduates relied on these statistics as assurances that they would obtain full-time attorney jobs after graduating. But the statistics portrayed their post-graduation employment prospects as far more sanguine than they turned out to be. After graduation, the Cooley graduates did not secure the kind of employment the statistics advertised—or in some cases any employment at all. They claimed that, had they known their true—dismal—employment prospects, they would not have attended Cooley—or would have paid less tuition. Because their Cooley degrees turned out not to be worth what Cooley advertised them to be, they have sought, among other relief, partial reimbursement of tuition, which they have estimated for the class would be $300, 000, 000. But because the Michigan Consumer Protection Act does not apply to this case's facts, because the graduates' complaint shows that one of the statistics on which they relied was objectively true, and because their reliance on the statistics was unreasonable, we AFFIRM the district court's judgment dismissing their complaint for failure to state any claim upon which it could grant relief.

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a non-profit corporation accredited by the American Bar Association, has its main campus in Lansing, Michigan, with satellite campuses in the Michigan cities of Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills, and Grand Rapids. Cooley enrolls more law students than any other law school in the country: for the 2010–2011 academic year, the school enrolled approximately 4, 000 students, eighty-two percent of whom attended part-time. On August 8, 2011, Cooley announced plans to open a satellite campus, in Riverview, Florida, near Tampa Bay, to accommodate another 700 law students.

Cooley charges full-time students tuition of $36, 750 per year. With room, board, and living expenses, the total cost to attend Cooley Law is estimated to be $52, 000 per year. For the fiscal year 2009, Cooley's total operating revenue was $117, 577, 686, which included $108, 979, 296 in tuition. Its total operating costs were $97, 196, 760, including $47, 158, 197 that Cooley paid its employees. Cooley paid its Dean, Don LeDuc, $548, 047 in total compensation during fiscal year 2008, and it paid him $523, 213 during fiscal year 2009, making LeDuc one of the highest paid law-school deans in the country. Cooley has also continued to pay its former Dean and founder, Thomas Brennan, $368, 581 in 2008, and $370, 245 in 2009. Cooley pays its other eleven highest-paid employees amounts ranging from between $200, 225 to $249, 999.

According to the amended complaint, U.S. News & World Report reported that Cooley has the lowest admissions standards of any accredited or provisionally accredited laws school in the country. In 2010, the school accepted eighty-three percent of all applicants, an acceptance rate nearly fifteen percentage points greater than the second least-selective law school, Phoenix School of Law. In 2010, the mean Law School Admissions Test score for incoming students at Cooley was 146, and the mean undergraduate grade-point average was 2.99—both lows for all accredited and provisionally accredited law schools. Cooley also has low retention rates. For example, in 2008, almost thirty-two percent of the roughly 1, 500 students who enrolled at Cooley failed to enter their second year, and ten percent of second-year students failed to continue into their third year. Some third-year students do not complete their degrees.

In 2008, twenty-two third-year students, about three percent of the class, either failed or dropped out during the academic year.

The twelve plaintiffs in this case fared better, having graduated from Cooley between 2006–2010. Each individual did so, however, burdened with an average of $105, 798 in ...

Our website includes the first part of the main text of the court's opinion.
To read the entire case, you must purchase the decision for download. With purchase,
you also receive any available docket numbers, case citations or footnotes, dissents
and concurrences that accompany the decision.
Docket numbers and/or citations allow you to research a case further or to use a case in a
legal proceeding. Footnotes (if any) include details of the court's decision. If the document contains a simple affirmation or denial without discussion,
there may not be additional text.

Buy This Entire Record For
$7.95

Download the entire decision to receive the complete text, official citation,
docket number, dissents and concurrences, and footnotes for this case.